Chapter 44
Forty-Four
Marcus and Andre helped David unharness the team, put away the tack and brush down the horses.
Then they filled washbasins and water cans with water from a rain barrel in the yard.
Marcus intended to bring them directly up to the room where he’d left Marguerite sleeping, but given the heat and labors of the day, as well as the lingering odors of the Conciergerie, he couldn’t resist stripping down and scrubbing his skin and hair.
Popular opinion held that a layer of filth protected the body from disease, but Marcus found the feel of fresh water on his skin refreshing and clarifying.
And lord knew he needed a clear head for what lay before them.
Pouring a can of water over his head, he tossed his hair back, enjoying the feel of cold liquid on his skin.
“Got to maintain that sunshine and leather smell, eh?” Andre said.
Pulling a wet towel from around his neck, Marcus snapped it at Andre’s head.
Andre, anticipating this response, leapt backwards with impressive speed and the cloth whistled past his nose. “Is that any way to treat a man who brought you a fresh change of clothes?” He waved a weathered traveling bag in his right hand.
Marcus reached for it.
Andre snatched it back, opening it wide, and inhaling dramatically. He shook his head with dramatic regret. “I’m not getting the scent of sunshine.”
“No doubt because of your overwhelming aroma of horse’s arse.
” Marcus wrung out the towel, slung it over his shoulder, and grabbed the bag.
Pulling out a fresh linen shirt and slipping it over his head, he resisted the urge to sniff it.
Of course, Marguerite had been rambling.
She’d just escaped France’s most notorious prison with the chief prosecutor at her side.
Even the most sensible man would be left gibbering after that.
He donned stockings and breeches and stepped into his shoes. Sweeping his damp hair off his shoulders, he slung a pile of clean towels over his arm. Then he wrapped a clean handkerchief around his cut hand, and hefted the two cans of water Andre had filled for Marguerite’s bath. “Ready.”
Andre, lantern in hand, a washtub slung over his back like a copper-backed tortoise, nodded and led the way up the stairs.
The only sounds in the empty house were the click clack of their shoes against the wooden treads, the ticking of a clock, and the slosh of Marcus’s buckets.
While he doubted they’d wake the unconscious Madame de Rouvroy, still he made an effort to walk as softly as he could with water cans sloshing each in hand.
Let the lady get as much rest as she could before they set out on the next leg of their journey. She’d need to keep her wits about her for what lay ahead.
As would he.
He thought of the way she’d turned to him as he’d lifted her out of the carriage.
Of the sigh that escaped her. The way she tucked her head under his chin, one hand resting on his arm.
She was dressed like a soldier; he’d glanced down at her, trying to convince himself she was just that.
And failed utterly. How had Fouquier-Tinville missed the delicate beauty of her features?
Setting her down didn’t help. The room was stuffy, her face was flushed and damp with sweat. Removing the blue uniform jacket was the sensible thing to do. Her stockings and shoes were splashed with Paris’s ubiquitous street mud. So, he took them off as well.
It had been an effort to keep his eyes from following the line of her thighs upward. He forced his gaze downwards, which unfortunately led to his lingering appreciation of her shapely legs and ankles. He snatched up a light woven blanket at the foot of the bed and tossed it over them.
He resisted the urge to wipe her face clean of the graphite smudges—like mud on the Mona Lisa—but could not keep from brushing back a renegade curl clinging damply to her forehead.
Marcus shook his head in disgust; he was acting like a love-struck moon calf. He carelessly jostled the cans of water, soaking his stockings and shoes. “Devil take it.”
Andre paused mid step and glanced back over the rim of the basin on his shoulder. “Everything alright?”
“In the bloody pink.”
He’d charged battle lines with a fixed bayonet, marched through woods full of colonial sharpshooters, clawed his way out of a pile of the dead. Why, then, was he having so much trouble steeling himself against the allure of Marguerite de Rouvroy?
She hadn’t even been grateful he’d come to her rescue. The first words to tumble from her mouth? You never came. Thinking of her words made him think of her mouth, her lips soft and full, and the taste of them.
Stifling a groan, Marcus concentrated on the squelch of his soggy shoes as he followed Andre up the stairs and down a narrow hallway.
They reached the door of the bedroom, Andre set the washbasin down, shifted the lantern from his right hand to his left, then knocked softly. Not anticipating an answer from the comatose woman within, he unlatched the door and swung it open.
Marcus followed Andre into the room, determined to think only of his studio with its long windows, rolls of canvas, and tables full of paints and brushes.
Blissfully peaceful. Blissfully free of people.
Gaze fixed on the floor of the little bedroom, he imagined the studio’s well-worn floor, instead of this polished one glinting in the lantern light.
Marguerite de Rouvroy would not be a problem.
He was in control. With a shake of his head, which sent more water sloshing over his shoes, he stepped forward to fill the tub with water, his eyes fixed on the path of light created by Andre’s lantern.
And froze.
Captured in the lantern glow, like some cursed moon maiden, was Marguerite de Rouvroy. Naked. Kneeling over a basin on the floor, waves of hair spilling into the water. He glimpsed the elegant curve of her neck, her shoulders.
She let out a cry of horror.
Marcus forced his eyes up and hissed, “Put the damn light down.”.
It was the wrong instruction. At the same time Andre lowered the lantern, Marguerite sat up. The light illuminated the curves of her breasts and belly, making the droplets of water streaming down them glitter like strings of diamonds.
Jesus wept. Marcus almost did.
How had he ever imagined Heaven was ignoring him? He was clearly the butt of some vast celestial joke.
“My deepest apologies my lady,” Andre said, blessedly lifting the lantern, as Marguerite scrambled to cover herself.
He began in English then quickly corrected himself, continuing in French.
“We…” Glancing over his shoulder at Marcus, he quickly amended.
“I. I thought you’d still be sleeping. You were so deep in slumber when Marcus carried you in.
Didn’t want to disturb. But you were so insistent about wanting to wash… ”
He turned his back to her, gesturing at the washtub, the cans of water in Marcus’s hands.
Setting them down with a watery thunk, Marcus unslung a towel from his shoulder, elbowed past Andre, and draped it over Marguerite’s shoulders.
She flushed and wrapped herself in it with shaking hands. Then she rose, transforming from a startled Boucher nymph to Botticelli’s Venus.
Marcus silently cursed his near perfect ability to recall images after the briefest glance. He opened his mouth to demand just what the hell she thought she was doing, then snapped it shut. Because it was perfectly obvious.
As if reading his mind, Marguerite lifted her chin and said in a tone that was equal parts defiance and desperation, “I had to be rid of the smell.”
Her words were like a punch to the gut.
He knew how it felt to come through unbelievable horrors. Understood all too well the feverish need to scrub away the memories, knowing they would be impossible to erase, but still being desperate to try.
He wanted to gather her up in his arms and hold her close. To whisper against the waves of her dark hair that she had made it through the worst, and that everything was going to be all right.
But it wasn’t his place. She wasn’t his woman. And he wasn’t a man to make false assurances.
He nodded at the tangle of clothes on the floor behind her.
“Would you like me to take those out of here? You’ll find a fresh change of clothes in those trunks and boxes.
” He gestured towards several pieces of luggage Elizabeth Harcrest had left behind and which he and Andre had brought up to the room while Marguerite was sleeping.
“Yes, please.” Her cheeks blazed with embarrassment, but the relief in her voice was almost tangible. “It would be so lovely to bathe properly. M’sieur Saint-Just, if you would bring the washtub in.”
“It’s Scott, actually,” Andre said, still not turning around. He picked up the tub, walked several steps backwards, past Marcus, and set it down again.
“Thank you, M’sieur Scott.” She frowned at the nearly empty dish of soap on the floor and said tentatively, “You don’t, perchance, have more soap?”
Andre pulled a handkerchief-wrapped square from his pocket and awkwardly handed it behind him.
“Oh.” She took it from him, directing a smile at Andre that even though the man couldn’t see it, made Marcus want to growl. Lifting the square to her nose, she closed her eyes and inhaled. “Honeysuckle.”
The bath had been Marcus’s idea. Why hadn’t he thought of bringing her soap?
“The water isn’t heated, but given how hot the weather has been, it ought to be sufficiently refreshing,” Marcus said brusquely, as he bent to retrieve the water cans.
Striding forward with them, he managed an admittedly childish, but utterly satisfying splash of Andre’s legs that sent the man leaping backwards.
He set one can down, grasped the rim and bottom of the other and poured the contents into the tub.
As he lifted the second, Marguerite stopped him, one slim hand on his arm.
“I’ll need that to rinse.”
“It’s heavy—too heavy for you to lift by yourself. And I’m afraid we haven’t any maids to help you with your toilette. It’s too risky to have anyone else in the house,” he added apologetically.
Patting the remaining towels slung over his shoulder, he continued, “We’ve brought more towels for your…
” He’d been about to say body. But the word seemed too much of a temptation to look at what he was trying to avoid.
Searching for another, safer word, he became aware of the sound of water dripping from her wet tresses onto the floor. “Hair,” he concluded with relief.
“It’s my hair that’s the problem.” Marguerite gave a watery laugh.
He glanced over at her, at the thick tangles of wet hair hanging down to the curve of her towel draped hips.
“There’s just so much of it…” Clutching the towel with one hand, she lifted a dark hank with the other. “And it’s full of that…odor. I was trying to wash it when you knocked. Making a mess of it really. Foolish to try with just a basin and a hand towel, but…I had to.”
The heart-twisting desperation was back in her voice. Marcus looked down at the pools of water splattered around the too-small basin on the floor.
“Would you,” he said cautiously, “like one of us to wait in the hall while you wash? And when you’re ready, come in and help you wash your hair?
’ He curled his hands into fists. He didn’t want Andre anywhere near her hair, or any part of her for that matter, but the thought of touching her drove him nearly as mad.
“That trunk, the one with the clothes,” her voice trembled. “Would there be combs and brushes in it?” Hair pins?”
“I haven’t inspected the contents, but it belongs to the sister of an earl.” A woman who not only had access to the finest shops in London, but had also packed with an eye to shackling a notorious rake. And succeeded. “I expect so.”
“I don’t wish to impose...” She worried at her lower lip, the blush in her cheeks deepening.
Marcus suspected her sense of propriety was warring with her need for cleanliness.
“But there’s really no helping it.” She looked pointedly at him. “You’ll stay? And help me?”
He wanted to say no. He wanted to say yes. Wanted not to notice how the water from her hair made sections of the towel cling to her skin.
He looked at Andre, who had turned slightly and was studying them both.
Andre shook his head. “The lady asked for you. And I’ve sworn an oath never to touch a lady’s hair.
” He gave Marguerite an apologetic shrug.
“Four sisters. Unfortunate prank involving a curling iron, red sealing wax, and one of the older ones. Amelie.“
“Amelie?” Marcus said, momentarily distracted by Andre’s mention of one of London’s reigning beauties.
“Yes, that sister. The others held me down while she beat me with a hairbrush. Couldn’t walk properly for days. Her threat of vengeance if I go back on my word haunts me still. You can wield a hairbrush can’t you, Scribbler?”
Given the number of wenches he’d seen perched on Scott’s lap, Marcus wasn’t entirely sure he believed Andre was a haunted as he claimed. Though Lady Amelie was indeed a force to be reckoned with.
“Excellent.” Marguerite interjected. “Citizen Tisset…no, M’sieur Tyndale, is it not? I would be delighted to take you up on your kind offer.”
There was an expression of relief mixed with critical amusement in her eyes that reminded Marcus of her self-portrait.
“You can add maid services to my dear father’s bill, can you not?”